As Time Goes By
by Little.Miss.Chloe
Summary: In his long lifetime James Buchanan Barnes would only ever love two women. They were both beautiful, they were both kind, they were both so different. One he had met while he was himself, the other when he didn't know who he was. One he had lost to time, the other he might lose because of his past. One had needed him to save her, the other would save him.
1. Chapter One

Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me.)  
I own nothing besides my two leading ladies, Maggie and Meg, and their story lines. Marvel owns everything else.

* * *

 _December 1, 1940_

 _It seemed like all of Red Hook was talking about her. He hadn't seen the broad yet, but just from the whispers he had heard about her in the dinner where he had breakfast, the gym he boxed at, and the dance hall he took his date to, he felt as if he knew her._

 _She was young, the waitress at the diner had whispered. Young and single. And it just wasn't right that such a young thing had moved to Red Hook all on her own. She should have been with her parents. She should have had a husband. There were many things the girl should have done and none of them amounted to her living in a crap apartment on the bad side of Red Hook all by herself._

 _She was doll is what one of the boxers at the gym told him. A real Irish beauty with red hair and green eyes. And the most gorgeous gams he'd ever seen. That had caused Bucky to raise his eyebrow. These boxers were much like him, a different woman every week, he found it hard to believe that this woman was any different then any of the other women they talked about, save for the fact that she was a bit of a mystery._

 _At the dancehall one of the waitresses whispered to his date that the girl was bad news. That the boss had hired her even though the waitress was sure that the girl was a quiff. His date had wanted to know what the girl had been hired as. The waitress sniffed, "A taxi," she answered, referring to the women that moved around the dance floor waiting for a man to buy a dance with her._

 _Bucky scoffed, the waitress had said the word as if it were the worst thing in the world, as if the entire town didn't know that she herself let men pay her for a hell of a lot more than a dance. "When's she start?" he asked before he could stop himself. He didn't really care about when she started. He just hoped that once more people in Red Hook knew who she was, the less they'd talk about her. She had only been in Brooklyn for a day and he was already sick of hearing about her._

" _Are you interested in her, Bucky?" his date asked him. She kept her tone light and teasing, but there was a stiffness to it. She wasn't pleased with his interest._

 _Bucky shrugged his shoulders, "Haven't seen her yet," he told his date, not caring that much if he hurt her feelings. She was the one that asked and they were nearing the end of their week anyway. Come Monday he'd be finding a new girl. "But if she's new I might be able to buy a dance for Steve without him realizing it's a set up."_

 _He hadn't realized the truth of his words until they were already out. But they were true. At least once a week he managed to drag Steve out to the dance hall. Several times he had tried to get him to ask a woman to dance, but Steve was always too shy, too scared of rejection. He had tried to persuade his friend to ask one of the girls who worked at the hall, they got paid to dance so it was unlikely that any of them would turn his friend down, but Steve hadn't danced with any girl in his life besides his mother and he didn't want his first dance with a dame to be paid for. But if this one was new, Bucky might be able to persuade Steve to dance with her without realizing that his friend bought the dance._

 _He glanced at the waitress, his eyebrows raised. "When does she start?" he asked again, still waiting for the answer._

" _Tomorrow night," was the answer. "Though you might want to arrive early. The whole of Red Hook's going to be trying to get a look at her."_

 _-.-.-.-.-_

" _You don't have to drag me along, Buck," Steve told him for what felt like the tenth time that evening and they hadn't even entered the dance hall yet. "Really I think you would have more fun if I stayed home."_

 _Bucky threw his arm around Steve's shoulders and chuckled, "And why would I have more fun here alone?" he asked, ducking his head to make eye contact with Steve, his eyebrows raised._

" _Something tells me you wouldn't be alone for long," Steve argued, side-eyeing all the women in line outside the hall that were staring at Bucky as if he were the most handsome man they had ever seen._

 _Bucky sighed, Steve hid it well, but Bucky knew that his scrawny best friend wished that girls would look at him the way they stared at Bucky. "These girls are a dime a dozen," he told his friend, his voice no longer joking. "One day we'll both find one that is worth our attention."_

 _Steve laughed, a soft-depreciating sound. "I'll bet that it'll be easier for you than for me."_

 _Bucky shook his head, "No," he promised his friend as they moved closer to the door. There was only one small group in front of them, five women and then they'd be in. "Because I'll have to find one who looks past your scrawny ass and sees the fighter on the inside."_

 _He was alluding to his best friend's tendency to get in fights even though he was always the little guy and usually got his ass handed to him. Steve smiled, "And when she does, you're gonna lose her," he promised Bucky sarcastically. "She'll realize what a catch I am."_

 _Bucky chuckled, "A real dreamboat," he assured Steve as they were finally permitted to enter the hall._

 _It was the busiest Bucky had ever seen it. The waitress hadn't been lying when she said that all of Red Hook was going to come to the hall to get a look at the broad. The old waitress from the diner was there. The boxer from his gym. His date from the night before with a new man. Everyone. But even with the crowd it wasn't hard to pick her out, Bucky would give the whisperers this - she was a real dish._

 _She was wearing a green dress, tight on top and then fanning out from her waist to her knees. There was a keyhole opening on the chest, showing off just a hint of cleavage and a bow tied at her neck. The sleeves went past her elbows. He wouldn't have guessed her job by looking at her dress, she looked fit to go to Sunday mass. The emerald dress really set off the red in her hair which was falling past her shoulders in large curls, her bangs curled and pinned into a large barrel roll on the left side of her face. She was wearing a bit more make up than a woman he'd see on the street and there were dark circles under her eyes, telling the story of long, sleepless nights. But she was beautiful._

 _She was walking around the outside of the dance floor doing her best not to make eye contact with any of the men that were trying to catch her attention. Being new to town the men didn't seem to feel safe approaching her outright or just grabbing her and pulling her toward the dance floor like they did with the other hired dancers. They seemed to want her to approach them. It wasn't good for business, Bucky understood that the girls got paid a bit just to show up in the dance hall, but the real money came from the tips men paid them for a dance. By avoiding men's gazes she was loosing out on money. But it sure made his plan easier._

 _He turned toward Steve and smiled, "Why don't you go get us a drink?" he asked his friend, nodding toward the crowded bar. Steve raised an eyebrow as if to ask Bucky what he was going to do while Steve got drinks. Bucky nodded toward the dance floor, being careful not to look too long in the red head's direction. "I'm going to see if we know anyone."_

" _You're going to look for a dance partner, and you're going to leave me in the back corner waiting until you're ready to go home," Steve corrected. Though he was smiling and he didn't put up any other argument before he walked away from Bucky toward the bar._

 _Bucky waited a beat, making sure that Steve wasn't going to turn around before he made a beeline for the red head. She must have been paying enough attention to see him coming for her because when he got close enough to speak to her she quickly turned around and started to walk in the opposite direction. Her steps quicker than they had been before. Bucky widened his steps and caught up with her easily. "You know doll, you're not going to make any money if you keep giving all these guys the brush off," he told her, laughter coloring his tone as he moved around her to stand in front of her, blocking her path._

 _She glanced up at him and for a moment Bucky was thrown by her gaze. Her eyes were green. The kind of green that pushed its way through the piles of dirty snow in the winter to remind him that spring was coming. The kind of green that budded on grey twigs, bringing life back to their branches. That churning, passionate green that the ocean turned during a storm. The color of the forest after it rained. The green color that promised hope and life no matter what had happened. When he looked into her eyes he could see all of that. And when she raised one delicate eyebrow he had the distinct feeling that she knew it._

 _Bucky looked away from her, a bit uncomfortable if he were being honest with himself. He lifted his hand to the back of his neck and scratched, a habit bred from insecurity that he had picked up from Steve. "I was wondering if you were free for a dance," he told her, his voice softer than it had been a moment before when he was teasing her._

 _She looked at him for a moment, her nose wrinkling slightly as she made a decision about him. Finally after a moment she shook her head, "I'm sorry," she told him, and she truly did sound sincere. "But I think I've made a mistake. I was just on my way to Mr. Harris to tell him that I will not be able to work here."_

 _She was about to turn away from him. Bucky's hand shot out and he caught a hold of her wrist. "Wait," he asked her, almost desperate when she turned to look at him again. "It's not for me. It's for a friend of mine. He's shy, paralyzingly so. He's never danced with a girl though I've managed to drag him here at least once a week for the past year. He's too shy to ask a girl to dance and he won't ask one of the hired girls. But you're new to town, he doesn't know who you are. So I understand if you're not completely comfortable with the job, but before you quit could I please pay you for one dance with my friend?"_

 _Her nose was wrinkled again, she was thinking. After a moment she sighed, glancing behind Bucky. "Which one is your friend?" she asked him._

 _Bucky smiled, sure once she saw Steve that she would agree to the dance. Even if the girl was a bit afraid of all the male attention she was getting it would be impossible for her to be afraid of Steve. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and turned her to face the bar. "You see the scrawny one?" he asked, nodding in Steve's direction. Her eyes widened a bit, she hadn't expected that. Bucky nodded, "That's the one. His name is Steve."_

 _This time her nose didn't wrinkle. She didn't need to think about her answer. "Sure," she told him with a nod and a slight smile. "I'll dance with him."_

" _Swell," Bucky agreed, reaching into his pocket to pull out some cash to pay her. She shook her head and waved him off._

" _You don't have to pay me," she told him with a gentle smile. "If your friend won't dance with any of the other hired girls I bet he'd take it as a bit of an insult to find out that you paid for his first dance with me. This one is on the house."_

 _Bucky raised his eyebrows, he hadn't expected that. He held his hand out, "My name's Bucky," he told her, figuring that he needed to introduce himself._

 _She smiled and gently slipped her hand into his, "Maggie," she told him._

 _Bucky held onto her hand for a beat too long before he dropped it, "Nice to meet you Maggie," he told her. He couldn't look away from her eyes. He didn't see the blush rise on her cheeks, but he did see when she dropped her gaze away from his, she was uncomfortable. He quickly looked over her shoulder toward the bar, "Come on," he told her, placing a gentle hand on the small of her back. "I'll introduce you to Steve."_

 _Steve looked surprised when Bucky brought her over. He had just moved away from the bar, two beers in his hands, when Bucky approached. "Well, Buck," he announced. "Had I known that you were going to find a friend I would have gotten another drink."_

 _Bucky chuckled, "Steve this is my friend Maggie," he gestured between them. "Maggie this is Steve."_

 _Maggie smiled and held her hand out to Steve. Bucky had to give it to the girl, she knew exactly how much effort to put into the smile. Too much and Steve would have been uncomfortable, too little and Steve would have guessed at her lack of enthusiasm. But this smile was just enough. "Nice to meet you, Steve," she told him._

 _Bucky glanced between them, "Do you drink beer, Maggie?" he asked her. She glanced at him and nodded. He smiled, "Great, you can have mine," he leaned around her to pluck one of the beer bottles out of Steve's left hand. "I'll go get another one for myself." He meant for them to go dance but when he turned around, half way to the bar Steve had led her toward a table and they were sitting down and talking. For a moment he felt disappointed, but then he realized that even this was a big step for his friend._

 _Unlike for Steve, men and women moved out of his way at the bar. It didn't take Bucky nearly as long to get a beer as it had for his friend. Within minutes he was back at the table with Steve and Maggie. They were sitting next to each other, Steve was talking and Maggie's head was thrown back as she laughed. Bucky slid into the booth on the other side of Steve, trying to make it clear to his friend that he had no interest in the red head. "What's so funny?" he asked, glancing between the two._

" _Steve was just telling me about the day they worked on figure drawing at art school," Maggie told him, her laughter still sparkling in her eyes at whatever Steve had said._

 _Bucky grinned, "Yeah," he agreed. "Had I known that is what they worked on in art school I might have gone."_

 _Maggie arched an eyebrow, "You would have gone to art school to draw naked men?" she asked him, her voice teasing. She shrugged a shoulder, "Huh, I wouldn't have guessed that."_

" _What?" Bucky asked, leaning forward. "I thought he had -"_

" _I wouldn't have told her about the day we drew women," Steve interrupted him. "And apparently I shouldn't have told you either."_

 _Maggie smiled and shook her head as she looked between the two men. Bucky couldn't be sure, he didn't know her well enough. But he thought that maybe she was actually enjoying spending time with them, not pretending to. He liked that. Most of the girls in Red Hook wouldn't give Steve the time of day, especially when Bucky was around. But this girl, she was paying more attention to Steve than Bucky, and she seemed genuinely interested in him._

 _For that fact alone Bucky decided that he didn't care what people whispered about her. This broad was alright in his book._

 _She and Steve were laughing at something, something he had missed when making his mind up about Maggie when the band finished one song and started another. Maggie turned her head, glancing almost wistfully at the dance floor. "Indian Summer," she murmured, naming the song the band had just started to play._

" _You like the song?" Steve asked. It was a slow song, a fox trot. The dance floor cleared a bit as many of the younger couples who were there for the more upbeat songs left the floor. Maggie didn't turn away from the floor as she nodded. Steve smiled and turned toward Bucky, silently nodding toward the red head and signaling that he wanted Bucky to ask the girl to dance. Bucky shook his head and nodded at Steve. His friend turned, glancing toward Maggie for a moment and debating. Then he cleared his throat awkwardly, "Would you like to dance, Maggie?" he asked her._

 _She turned away from the floor to look at Steve, "Only if you want to -" she started, her voice filled with uncertainty._

 _Steve smiled at her, "Wouldn't have asked if I didn't," he assured her._

 _Maggie smiled at him and stepped out of the booth, waiting until Steve stepped out too before moving toward the dance floor. He didn't hold her hand and when they got out there he looked as if he was scared out of his mind. But he put a hand on the small of her back and took her right hand in his and for a moment Bucky allowed himself to smile. His plan had worked._

 _But before they could start dancing a man came up and put his hand on Steve's shoulder, easily pulling the scrawny kid away from Maggie. Bucky couldn't hear what the guy said to Steve. But it seemed to upset Maggie. Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed as the man grabbed her waist and tried to force her to dance with him. Bucky stood from his seat, prepare to go push the man off of her when Maggie did it herself. She brought both of her hands up to the man's chest and shoved him so hard that he tripped and fell on his ass on the floor in front of her._

 _Then, with a whispered word to Steve, the red head quickly ran out of the dance hall._

* * *

Chapter Dictionary:  
Gams - legs.  
Quiff - a prostitute.  
Taxi - a girl who is paid to dance with gentlemen at a dance hall.

* * *

Author's Note:

I kept saying that I wasn't going to post this story until I was completely finished with it. I kept saying that I wasn't going to post any new stories until my GoT story was finished. I kept saying a lot of things.  
And then tonight while watching _The Winter Soldier_ I decided that it was absolutely time to start posting this story.  
And so here is the first chapter. I hope that you enjoyed it.  
Just as a heads up, the next chapter is going to be set in the present day (or as close to present day as CACW. The story will bounce back and forth with each chapter past, future, past, future - Maggie, Meg, Maggie, Meg. And the plot will, for the most part, be completely of my own imagination with some touches and references of MCU. And then toward the end the stories will start to merge with their Captain America movie counterparts (CAFA and CACW).  
Each chapter comes with a date. And all chapters set in the past will be completely in italics to try to keep it from being completely confusing.  
But yeah, you've been warned.  
If you enjoyed this chapter, please take a moment to favorite it or add it to your alerts lists. If you loved it, please write a review! They're like oxygen to me and let me know I'm doing something right!  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


	2. Chapter Two

_Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me.)  
_ _I own nothing besides my two leading ladies, Maggie and Meg, and their story lines. The rest belongs to Marvel._

* * *

September 1, 2015

He was jealous of Steve Rogers. He hated to admit it, but it was true. He had not been happy when he was the asset, he hadn't been allowed to feel any emotions except perhaps anger. But that had worked for him. He had known what to do with anger, he had been comfortable with it. And after every mission they had wiped his mind, keeping all the memories at bay. But this mission was different, this target was blonde man had _known_ him.

And that is why he was jealous. Steve was just as much a man out of time as he was, but at least Steve _remembered_. And just the very act of remembering what his life had been was enough to keep him relatively sane. But for _him_ , there was nothing that kept him sane, nothing that held him together.

He had been to Washington DC, to the Smithsonian and it's collection on Captain America and the Howling Commandos. He had allowed himself no more than an afternoon to learn as much as he could about _Bucky Barnes_. They would be looking for him, for the Winter Soldier, and DC would be the first place they looked.

He thought about going back to Brooklyn, but all of his memories of Red Hook were seventy years old. There was nothing for him in Brooklyn, nothing that would help him, nothing that would heal him. And they would look there too, he was sure of it. There were probably already S.H.I.E.L.D agents in New York, staking out all of _Bucky's_ old haunts waiting for him to take a stroll down memory lane.

He had nowhere to go. He supposed he could have gone back to the compound. Hydra would have happily taken their asset back. They would wipe his memory and put him back on ice until they needed him again. But he wouldn't do that. He didn't remember who he was, but there was a part of him, the part that had stirred when Captain America told him that he was _with him till the end of the line_ , that wanted to find out who he was. A part of him that was ashamed at all the missions that he could not remember. A part of him that _knew_ that he would never go back, at least not willingly.

And so he moved. Every month or so he moved, never staying in one place for too long, never making friends. He stuck to towns in the middle of nowhere, big cities that he had no ties to. Never staying anywhere long enough to catch anyone's notice.

Every day he felt more and more like ... himself, he supposed. Without the constant memory wipes his memories were starting to come back. In dreams and flashes that left his heart hammering and his chest tight.

Unfortunately for him, it seemed that the most recent memories, the worst ones came first.

-.-.-.-.-

The train was too crowded. There were too many people, too much noise. He preferred large cities to small towns, he was less of a novelty in bigger cities; but he did not prefer all the people. The very crowds that he used to preserve his anonymity made him uncomfortable. They made him tense, set his teeth on edge. He tried to avoid them at all costs, but sometimes subjecting himself to a crowd was a necessary evil. He had thought that he could handle a midday train ride to the center of the city, but he had not imagined that the train car would be so full.

He started to walk toward the doors, pushing his way through the crowd. He would get off a the next stop, he didn't care how far away he was from his intended location. He'd walk the rest of the way. He moved past a couple of women who were standing in the aisle blocking his path and too wrapped up in their conversation to realize that he needed them to move.

"And so I said to him that I have been longing for a trip home to see my parents," one of the women was saying. They were speaking Russian.

He stopped. His jaw clenched. His right hand tightened into a fist. The woman didn't know, she couldn't have known that _longing_ was one of his activation words. All the same, he could feel his heart beat faster, his breath became shallow. He raised his fist, the one thought running through his mind was _not again_. He would not allow them to activate him again.

Before he could do anything a small woman rushed forward, quickly grabbing his left arm. If she was surprised by how hard his metal arm was, even beneath his jacket, sweatshirt, and long sleeved shirt, she did not flinch away. "Uau," she murmured in accented Romanian. "Uau! Calmează-te."

She was whispering to him. Ordering him to calm down. His heart was still beating rapidly against his ribs, but it had slowed. He took a deep, steadying breath. She smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling. "Acolo eşti," she whispered. _There you are_. She glanced behind him for a moment, before she turned back, holding up her index finger in the universal statement for _wait a minute_. She moved around him toward one of the seats and whispered something to a middle aged man in a business suit. The man looked disgruntled, but he nodded and he stood up and left his seat empty.

A moment later the woman was back in front of him, gently pushing him backwards towards the seat. "Aşezaţi-vă," she ordered, her voice firm, though her touch was gentle. He obeyed, quickly sitting in the seat. She knelt down in front of him, one hand resting on his leg, the other sliding underneath his chin so that she could lift his gaze to meet her own. He shook his head, he did not know this woman, but she shouldn't have been anywhere near him. It wasn't safe for him and it sure as hell wasn't safe for her. But her grip was firm. And she refused to let go. "Vorbesti Engleza?" she asked him, finally allowing him to place her accent.

In spite of their current situation he felt his lips turn up a bit at the corners, "You speak Romanian very well," he told her, breathing through his nose in an attempt to calm himself down. He shrugged, "For an American."

She smiled, "You just met me and already with the American jokes," she murmured as she shook her head. "I'd be insulted if you weren't American as well."

That surprised him. James Barnes had been American, but James Barnes had died during World War II. The asset hadn't belonged to any country. He had belonged to Hydra. They spoke to him in German, Russian, English, and at least ten other languages and he had understood all of them. He had assumed over the years that he had lost his New York accent. But this girl had picked up on it easily enough.

"I'm from Brooklyn," he told her with a shrug.

She smiled, "So not American at all?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "New Yorkers are a completely different breed."

He didn't understand her joke, but he allowed his lips to turn up at the corners anyway.

Her smile widened, "So what is a kid from Brooklyn doing in Bucharest?" she asked him, glancing around the crowded train car.

He shrugged, unsure of how he should answer. "Running from my past," he told her honestly. He wondered if it would scare her off.

She nodded, her brown eyes dancing over his face, landing on his long hair, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his cheeks were more hollow than they should have been from months of not eating enough. "Yeah," she whispered after a moment. "You've got that look about you."

"And you?" he asked. He didn't much care, but talking to her seemed to calm him down. His breathing was already evening out. He unclenched his fist, watching as his fingers straightened out.

She shrugged her shoulders, her lips tugging up at the right corner. "Not nearly anything as mysterious," she told him. "It's a classic rich white girl situation really. I went against my parents' wishes and got a degree in English," she shook her head. "I know, I know. What do you do with a B.A. in English? That's what my mother used to ask me all the time. So I found a job that would allow me to travel, to see the world and pay me to do it. In short, I work for a travel guide company. I travel and then I write about it. Where to go, what to do, where to stay, what to eat. All that jazz."

He smirked, "Doesn't seem too _classic_ to me," he murmured. "Most rich white girls I know go to England and France and call it seeing the world. Not many stray into Romania."

"Know a lot of rich white girls do you?" she asked with a smirk. Her hair reminded him of the northern lights. It was naturally as black as the night sky, but as she turned her head he saw the colors that she had weaved into it. Blues, emeralds, purples, and pinks. Each color visible for only a moment before it disappeared with the shifting light and strands of hair. Without thinking, without stopping himself he reached out his right arm, gently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. It was as soft as silk. Her cheeks tinged pink and she looked away from him as if she were uncomfortable. "Anyway, I've already done the London and Paris thing," she told him. "I wanted something a little more off the beaten path."

"So where did you go?" he asked her, dropping his hand away from her hair.

"Vietnam," she told him with a smile. "Germany, parts of Iraq, and now Romania."

He raised his eyebrows at that. It was a strange collection of locations. A recording came over the speakers, announcing the name of the next stop. Bucky was surprised when he realized that it was his stop, the girl had distracted him to the point that he had managed the train ride. He glanced over her shoulder, "This is my stop," he told her.

She smiled, "Mine too." She patted his knee and stood up. "Well, it was nice meeting you -" she stopped, realizing that she had not gotten his name.

"Bucky," he told her, the name felt foreign on his lips. But it also felt like the truth. She raised her eyebrows. He chuckled, "Short for a truly horrible family name," he told her.

She smiled, "I know how that goes." She stuck her hand out to him, "Meg."

He smiled in spite of himself. "That doesn't sound so horrible."

"Not as bad as Bucky," she teased. "Though horrible enough. I assure you." She started to move away from him, but then turned back, her eyes sparkling. "It was nice to meet you, Bucky," she told him. She shook her head, "Leave it to me to find probably the one other American in Bucharest on a train."

Bucky nodded. "Wait," he called out to her after a moment. She turned back around, still smiling. "How?" he asked her, not sure how to articulate what he wanted to know. She arched an eyebrow, still waiting. "How did you know?" he asked, gesturing toward his seat.

She smiled slightly, but there was a sadness to her eyes, one that he didn't like. "I've seen the look before," she told him softly. "Many times." Bucky raised an eyebrow, not sure what _look_ she was talking about. She shrugged a shoulder, "PTSD," she supplied gently. "My father had it my entire life. He could fool people well enough, but every once in a while he'd hear a noise, or see a face, or smell something that would bring him back. He'd freak out and lash out. Sometimes he got violent. His father, my grandfather, had been the same way." She paused, shaking her head. "And then my brother inherited the look." She bit her lip and drew in a shuddering breath. "I suppose you can say that I'm rather used to dealing with it."

He stared at her for a moment, cocking his head to the side. "They all fought in a war?" he asked her, understanding what she hadn't said.

She nodded, "Three different ones actually," she told him. "My grandfather fought in Germany in World War II, my father fought in Vietnam in 1970, and my older brother served two tours in Iraq."

"Me too," he told her, wincing slightly. He meant that he had served in Germany, but he knew that she would assume he meant the most recent war. Her travel list suddenly made a lot more sense to him. She wasn't simply traveling off the beaten path, she was following in her brother's, her father's, and her grandfather's footsteps.

She smiled that sad smile again, "I know," she told him. "You've got the look."

"What happened to them?" he asked her as he followed her toward the train doors.

"Grandpa died warm in his bed," she told him with a smile. "Eighty years old and completely ready." She stopped there.

"And your father and brother?" he asked.

She glanced up at him as the doors hissed open. She waited until they had stepped out of the train and onto the platform. "My father is still alive," she told him. "He and my mother got a divorce last year after -" she paused, shaking her head. "I don't know where he is now, last time I spoke to him he was in Mexico, running." Another pause, this one longer than the first. "And Billy -" her voice cracked, he wanted to tell her to stop, he had a feeling he knew what she was about to say, he didn't need to hear it. But she kept speaking before he could open his mouth. "Billy wasn't the same when he came back from his second trip over there. He was running too, though none of us saw it until it was too late. He shot himself a month after coming home."

He stared at her, realizing just how much she understood him. She had seen something in him when the women were talking that she knew. And then, purely because she wanted to help him, she had stepped in. He smiled at her, "You're a doll," he told her, surprising himself when some of Bucky slipped out of his mouth.

It was happening more and more frequently now, but it still caught him by surprise every time.

She smiled, almost bitterly, "My grandfather used to call me that. He used to call my grandmother that too. 1940s speak for sweetheart is how he phrased it once." She glanced at him. "You're an old soul, Bucky," she told him before she nodded. "Perhaps I'll see you around."

He doubted that. But all the same he nodded. And with one final smile she disappeared into the crowd.

-.-.-.-.-

He did see her again. Apparently they had both found crappy apartments to rent in the same run down apartment building. The first time he had seen her in the stairway he had ducked into a doorway, hiding in the shadows until she passed, unsure if he wanted to see her. The second time he had been about to leave his apartment when he heard her voice out in the hallway, singing to herself as she let herself into the apartment next to his. He stayed, behind his door until he heard her door shut behind her and then he sprinted out of his apartment.

His heart beat quickened. He wondered if he should leave the building, find a new apartment. His mind was at war with itself. The whole point of his constantly moving was to keep anyone from getting too close, and he was sure that if given the chance _this_ girl would be determined to get too close. But at the same time, this building was the only one he had found that didn't ask for identification and hadn't blinked when he insisted that he would pay his rent in cash. He wasn't sure if he would be this lucky a second time. Besides, he wouldn't be in Bucharest for long enough for this girl to get too used to him.

She would be safe.

And so would he.

The third time he ran into her in the apartment building there was no hiding from her. He had been walking down the stairs, taking them two at a time when he turned a corner, halfway between floors and ran straight into her. He cursed as she screamed. He was on the outside edge, the right side of the narrow staircase, she was on the inside. He had run into her with enough force that he knocked her into the bannister. The old wood broke and she started to fall.

Without thinking he reached his left hand out for her, grabbing tightly onto her wrist and yanking her back before she could fall onto the landing below. He recognized her as he was pulling her back onto the stairs, but she didn't recognize him, her eyes were squeezed shut tight, no doubt preparing for a hard landing. Once she realized that she wasn't going to fall she blinked her eyes open. "Oh," she gasped, lifting her free hand up to her chest, he still hadn't released his grip on her wrist. He could hear her heart beating. He focused on it, not ready to let go of her until he heard it slow down. "Ow," she whispered.

His gaze shot to her face before slowly moving over her body, looking for what had hurt her. His gaze fell to his metal hand wrapped tight around her wrist. He was cutting off the blood flow, her fingers were turning blue. He quickly let go of her arm, his gaze dropping to his feet. "I'm sorry," he told her.

"Don't be," she told him softly. He heard her shift, her body turning toward the hole in the railing that she had almost fallen through. "I'm pretty sure I'd be in much worse shape if you hadn't caught me."

She was trying to make him feel better. But he wouldn't allow it. He glanced at her left wrist, it was already turning purple. He hadn't been paying attention to how tightly he held her. He could have broken her bones if he had squeezed just a bit tighter. He shook his head, "I've got to go!" Careful not to bump into her again he moved past her and started running down the stairs, taking them three at a time now in his rush to get way from her.

"Bucky!" she called after him. "Wait!"

He didn't turn around. It would be better for her if he didn't. What was he thinking? He couldn't live near her.

He was a floor below her when he heard her whisper, "Thank you for saving me."

* * *

 _Chapter Dictionary:  
_ _Uau - woah.  
_ _Calmează-te - calm down.  
_ _Acolo eşti - there you are.  
_ _Aşezaţi-vă- sit down.  
_ _Vorbesti Engleza - Do you speak English_

* * *

Author's Note:  
I wanted to hold this chapter hostage until there were a few more reviews on this story, but I couldn't. I was too excited for you guys to meet Meg.  
What do you think of her so far? She's different than Maggie isn't she. You'll see that more as the story progresses, but I think Bucky needs different. He's not the same as he was back in 1940, the girl he would like wouldn't be the same either.  
Anyway, I hope that you guys enjoyed this last chapter. If you did please consider adding it to your favorites and alert lists (thank you to the thirteen of you that have already done that). But the big one is reviews.  
Reviews tell me that I'm doing a good job, that I'm not wasting my time by editing and posting this story. I could happily write it for my own selfish purposes, but if I'm going to edit it, and post it I want to know that people are enjoying it.  
So review, it takes almost no time for you and makes a huge difference for me!  
A **HUGE** amount of gratitude to my first reviewer! Thank you.

 **bellaphant** : I'm so glad you jumped from my GoT story to this one as well. I think it was a few months ago that I promised you guys that there were some Avengers-verse stories coming your way. Hopefully in these first two chapters I've managed to do both 1940s and modern Bucky justice. As for your questions Maggie is Irish American, I actually picture her with a slight southern drawl when I'm writing for her if I'm being honest. Not anything obvious like from Tennessee, but like a Virginia accent, softer and a bit slower than the New York boys she's currently running with. Thank you so much for your review! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as well!

That's all I've got for now!  
Thank you so much for stopping by.  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


	3. Chapter Three

Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me!)  
I own nothing besides my two leading ladies, Maggie and Meg, and their story lines. Marvel owns everything else.

* * *

 _December 12, 1940_

 _She continued to work for the dance hall. Her nerves from the first night slowly started to disappear and Bucky suspected that the money she made didn't hurt much either. She was one of old man Harris' most popular girls, if not his most popular. He wondered if her popularity was in spite of the whispers about her around town or because of them. He never asked though. It would be rude to ask her and stupid to ask one of the men._

 _Steve now knew that he had tried to hire Maggie to dance with him, but he hadn't been upset, especially when he learned that Maggie had refused the money. It also helped that the red head would smile wider than the Hudson whenever he and Steve walked into the dance hall. If she wasn't dancing with someone she would rush over to them, if she was she'd wait until the song ended and then before the notes of the next song started she'd be at their table, stealing one of their beers and asking them about their day._

 _She was strange, Miss Maggie Smith, an odd mix of shy and detached and yet friendly and comfortable. Bucky assumed that was why so many people were interested in her. She was friendly enough, with a gorgeous smile, but she kept men - even him and Steve, at enough of a distance that she was a mystery. And she managed to do it all while appearing to be an open book._

 _She was giggling now, sitting beside Bucky, Steve sitting across the booth from them with his sketchpad out. She turned away from Steve, making to stand up when the smaller man called out a playfully disgruntled, "Hey!"_

 _Her giggle became a full out laugh, "Steve," she sighed at him, shaking her head. "I've got to get back out there. Mr. Harris doesn't pay me to sit in a back booth playing your muse."_

" _Mr. Harris pays you bupkis," Bucky muttered. It was the truth. She turned to look at him, her lips pursed. She couldn't argue, it was the truth. He grinned at her._

 _She wanted to smile, he could see it in the way the corners of her lips twitched, "Exactly," she finally told him with a sigh. "Which is why I need to get back out there. I make money by dancing with those guys."_

 _Bucky shifted forward in his seat, reaching into his back pocket so that he could pull out his most recent boxing winnings. He had done really well in his last fight. He thought about pulling out a couple of bills and then with a slight shake of his head he threw the whole stack on the table in front of her. She shook her head, her green eyes widening, "Oh no, Barnes," she told him, reaching out to shove the bills back toward him. "I can't take all that."_

" _Half of it then?" Bucky asked, splitting the stack into two unequal stacks and sliding the bigger stack toward her._

" _I can't take your money," she told him, shaking her head again. "I won't."_

" _You will," Bucky told her, his voice firm. "You could be out there, making more money than my ma makes in a week, but you're here letting Steve draw your face for a school project. We owe you."_

" _You don't," she stressed, still not taking his money. "Not for this. This isn't work."_

 _Bucky smiled, pleased that she enjoyed spending time with them. This is why both he and Steve liked the girl. She was sweet, if not a little too innocent for his taste. "Then consider it me, asking if you're free for a dance."_

 _She pursed her lips for a moment, before she sighed and nodded._

 _Bucky chuckled and folded up the stack of bills, all of them, and handed them to her. She folded them smaller before rolling up her sleeve slightly to reveal a hidden pocket that all the girls had to keep the money they made. She was wearing shorter sleeves now. They still weren't as short as some of the girls on the floor. They stopped halfway between her shoulder and her elbow._

 _Bucky turned toward Steve and grinned, "Hurry up with your drawing," he told his friend, playfully rushing him. "They'll be playing our song soon." He winked at Maggie._

 _She smiled and shook her head before turning back to Steve herself and playfully wrinkling her nose at him, "And make sure you get my nose right," she warned him. "It'd be a real shame if you gave me an elephant trunk."_

 _Bucky nodded, "Especially when her nose is closer to a beak than a trunk," he joked. Her heel slammed down on the top of his foot, a surprising punishment for his jab at her nose. He chuckled. "Cool down," he told her. "We all know you've got a perfect button."_

" _Yeah," Steve agreed with a nod as he turned his sketch pad around so that they could both look at the picture. "See it's right here." Steve really was a good artist, the sketch looked so much like Maggie that Bucky almost thought it was a photograph. All except for the perfectly shaded button he had drawn in place of her nose._

 _Maggie's outburst of happy laughter caught the attention of the men at the table in front of their booth. They turned to look. One of them stood, perhaps on his way over to the booth to ask Maggie if she would dance with him. Bucky casually threw his arm over the back of the booth, almost around her shoulders without touching her. He wasn't claiming her. He was just letting the guy know that she was taken for the time being. The wolf sat back down._

 _Steve turned the sketch pad back toward him and began to erase the button so that he could draw her real nose. "You guys can go dance," he told them, not looking up from the sketch. "I think I can figure out the nose on my own."_

 _Maggie looked as though she were about to argue with him. But the band started a new song and it seemed like the perfect time to pull her out onto the floor. Bucky stood up first and held his hand out to her. "Come on, toots," he told her. "I told you they'd be playing our song."_

 _It was slower than he would have liked. Bucky liked to dance, and he knew his way around the dance floor. But he usually made a point not to dance to slow songs. The dames always got the wrong idea during slow songs. They always thought that he meant to_ ration _them, to make them only his. But Bucky was not one to go steady with anyone._

 _Still, it would have been awkward and obvious to wait for a faster song. And something told him that Maggie was as against having a man as he was about having a girl. In this entire dance hall she was probably the safest dance partner he could have chosen._

 _He moved her toward the middle of the floor and placed his hand on the small of her back, gently pulling her flush against his chest. It would have been more proper to have some space between them, but he enjoyed the way her cheeks burned a light pink at his proximity. Her left hand lifted to his shoulder and she allowed him to take her right hand in his left. If they were in a proper dancing stance their hands would have been extended away from their body. But instead Bucky pulled their arms closer to them, turning her arm so that the back of her hand was resting against his chest._

" _You're doing this on purpose," she murmured softly as they started to sway in time to the band. They were playing As Time Goes By. He wondered if Maggie realized that she was humming along with the band as they moved._

 _He chuckled, "I am," he agreed with her. He could have teased her, perhaps he should have, but she glanced up at him, her green eyes shining and he couldn't find the words. They swayed in silence for a minute before he cleared his throat, "You're a great dancer," he told her._

 _She chuckled, "Do you think Mr. Harris would hire a dead hoofer for one of his taxi girls?" she asked him._

 _Bucky winced, he had never had a problem when people referred to Harris' hired girls as taxis, but now that he knew Maggie he didn't like it. He especially did not like hearing her call herself that. "I wouldn't call you that," he told her._

 _She smiled, "I know Bucky," she told him and he realized that this was perhaps one of the few times she had called him by his nickname instead of his last name. He liked the way it sounded on her lips. "That's why I like you and Steve so much," she told him, leaning around him so that she could glance toward the booth in the back and check on Steve. She sighed when she returned her gaze to him, the green had darkened in her eyes, she was unhappy. "But I also know that not saying it doesn't make it any less true."_

" _I wish it did," Bucky told her softly._

 _She patted his shoulder, a combination of comforting and condescending. "If wishes were horses then beggars would all ride for free," she murmured. Bucky's eyebrows furrowed, he had never heard that one before. She smiled at him, "An old nursery rhyme my mother used to quote to me when I was younger," she told him._

" _It's a particularly depressing nursery rhyme," Bucky pointed out._

" _Aren't they all?" she asked him, arching an eyebrow. He shrugged his shoulders, to be honest he hadn't spent much time studying nursery rhymes. "Take ring around the rosie," she suggested, "you know it?" He nodded, not only did he know it but he sang it to his little sister all the time. Her name was Rosie and she was sure that the song was written about her. Maggie shrugged, "It's about the plague," she told him, simply. "The rosie is a rash that infected people got. The plague came in the summer and they would leave the bodies out on the street for someone to pick up, it smelled awful so they carried flowers and posies to cover up the smell."_

 _Bucky chuckled, it was a dark story, but the more she talked the more he realized that it made sense. He ran through the lyrics in his head. "What was it?" he asked her, trying to think back to his high school history classes. "Half of Europe died from the plague?"_

 _She nodded, "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," she murmured._

 _Bucky laughed again, unintentionally pulling her closer, causing her to stumble over one of his feet. One thing was for sure, he was never going to sing that song to his sister again. "You're mind goes to some dark places, doll," he told her once she was steady on her feet again._

" _You don't know the half of it," she told him. The statement could have been considered flirtatious enough if it weren't for the dark look that settled in her eyes and the way her jaw tightened._

 _He hadn't meant to upset her. He was about to apologize when the song came to an end and Maggie quickly stepped out of his arms. He thought about asking her for a second dance when a man came up behind her, a friend from school, Robbie Lawson, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey sweetheart," Robbie said once she had turned around to face him. "Free for a dance?"_

 _For some reason Maggie turned to glance over her shoulder at Bucky before she answered. Bucky nodded, he wasn't sure if dancing a second dance with her was safe, besides he didn't want to leave Steve for too long. She turned back to Robbie and a smile slipped onto her lips. Bucky hated that he knew her well enough to know that it was a fake smile._

" _Swell," Robbie told her, handing her his money and waiting for her to stick it in the pocket in the sleeve of her dress before he took her hand and led her away from Bucky to dance._

 _Bucky stood for a moment, watching the two of them. He wondered if the other people on the floor had watched the two of them dance and thought that her smiles looked as fake as they did now with Robbie. He wondered if Robbie's chest had tightened slightly at the sight of Maggie in Bucky's arms. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to turn from the dance floor and move back to the booth at the back of the hall._

 _He had just reached it when a girl came skidding up to him, one of the Foster girls, he couldn't remember her name. "Hey Buck," she said softly, her voice caressing the words as softly as her fingers were caressing the sleeve of his shirt. "Do you wanna dance?"_

 _Bucky looked at the girl for a moment. She was a blackout girl, her brown hair curled perfectly, her hazel eyes soft and gentle. She was wearing a dress of soft pink and he had a feeling that she would feel swell underneath his hands. But he turned, glancing toward the dance floor, he could still see Maggie's red hair as she moved across the floor with Robbie. He shook his head and moved past the girl to his seat across from Steve._

 _Steve chuckled and shook his head as Bucky sat down. "You're stuck on her," he warned his friend, though the blonde did not seem unhappy with the fact._

" _Who?" Bucky asked, turning his head toward the dance floor, keeping an eye on Maggie. "The Foster girl?"_

" _No," Steve corrected, following Bucky's gaze toward the dance floor. "Maggie."_

 _-.-.-.-.-_

 _He took a date with him the next night when he went to the dance hall. In part to prove to Steve, to everyone else, to himself, that he didn't carry a torch for Maggie Smith. And in part to force him to stay away from the girl. He didn't go near her. Not when their gaze met over the shoulders of their dance partners. Not when he passed near her by the bar and she called out his name. And not when he saw one of the men grab her a little too roughly when he requested a dance._

 _As he and his date are leaving the dance hall he noticed her, walking down the dark street alone. His eyes narrowed, how had he never realized that she walked home alone every night? When he and Steve came to the dance hall they stayed until it closed every night, but she was always gone before they were. He had always assumed that she had a ride._

 _There was a group of men following close behind her. Four of them. They made him feel uneasy. He sighed and forced himself to turn away, looking at his blonde date. He couldn't remember his name. "Where do you live, cookie?" he asked her, using a nick name until he could remember her name._

 _She smiled, "Just a few streets over," she told him, pointing in the same direction as Maggie was walking. "On King Street."_

 _Bucky nodded, silently pleased that they would be walking in the same direction as Maggie for a bit longer. He placed his hand on the girl's back, Lucy that was her name, and gently guided her forward. They walked in silence for almost a minute before Lucy interrupted it. "Why are you staring at her?" she asked. Bucky turned to look at her, his eyebrows furrowed, he hadn't realized that he was being so obvious. Lucy nodded toward Maggie, "You've been staring at her all night, Buck," she told him. "Are you sweet on her?"_

 _Bucky shook his head._

 _Lucy seemed to sigh with relief, "Good," she told him. "Because after what they say about her I would have had to question your intentions with me if you liked her."_

" _What do they say?" Bucky asked. He didn't really care, but he wanted to keep her talking. As long as Lucy was talking she wasn't asking him questions and he could keep focused on the men and Maggie._

" _I can only tell you what my older sister has told me," Lucy warned him. "But they say that she lives alone. They say that she pays her rent in cash. They say that if a man pays her enough at the dance hall she invites him home for a little extra. They say Smith isn't even her last name." She had already been whispering, but now she dropped her voice even lower, "They say that she's a charity girl."_

 _Bucky shook his head at that. He hated gossip. The way it took fact and twisted it into fiction. Of all the things "they" said, he was sure only half of it was true. Maggie did live alone, perhaps she did pay her rent in cash. But Red Hook took that information and turned the poor girl into a prostitute. He hated that._

 _He pushed the girl to walk faster._

 _She seemed to take his silence as acceptance because she continued. "After you danced with her last night all my girl friends were sure that she'd take you home with her, but I told them they were wrong. I told them that you would never pay for something that she had given dozens of other men first." She glanced ahead of them, "I wonder if she's going to take them all home with her," she mused. She laughed, high pitched and cruel before she turned to Bucky. "Do you think she even washes her sheets in between men?" she asked._

 _Bucky was disgusted with the blonde. "I don't know," he growled. "But I'd sooner find out then spend any more time with you," he told her honestly._

 _She gasped, perhaps rightfully insulted. For a moment Bucky thought that he should apologize to her. His mother had not raised him to treat a woman like this, but something told him that his ma wouldn't mind if she had heard the way Lucy spoke about Maggie. He opened his mouth, unsure of what he was going to say when he was interrupted by a scream up the road._

" _Leave me alone!"_

 _He turned quickly, forgetting about Lucy. Even if he hadn't been waiting for it, even if he hadn't been sure that the men were up to no good, he would have recognized Maggie's scream. Lucy called out after him, begging him to leave Maggie be, but he ignored her._

 _He was done leaving Maggie alone._

 _One of the four men was standing behind her, pulling her arms behind her back and laughing at her struggle. "You won't be able to punch me again, sweetheart," he laughed in her ear. Despite the situation at hand Bucky felt himself swell with pride for Maggie at the thought of her trying to defend herself. It didn't matter that she couldn't punch her attackers again, he would do it for her._

 _One of the other men moved in on her, he grabbed her collar and pulled, tearing her dress. Bucky could see the pale skin on her collarbone, her shoulder. There was a bruise, dark and purple, on her bicep. It wasn't old, but it also wasn't new. Bucky felt guilty, wondering how many times she had to fight men off as she walked home from work every night._

 _The man behind her caught sight of Bucky and chuckled, "Hello Barnes," he greeted. "You want a turn with her too?"_

 _Maggie's green eyes darted up to his face. They were wide with fear. A growl tore its way up Bucky's throat and he rushed forward, knocking the man who had torn her dress to the ground and hitting him in the face and chest over and over again until he was unconscious. There was a reason most of his opponents felt a bit of terror when they found themselves in the ring with him. He was tough, and he was fast, and he knew how to throw a punch._

 _He stood, glaring at the other men. "Take a powder," he growled to the three remaining men. They didn't immediately move. He spared a single glance at the unconscious man on the ground in front of him. "I mean it, grab your pal and get lost unless you want the same treatment."_

 _The one holding Maggie's arms was the first to move. Bucky's fists were still clenched, ready for a fight, but it never came. The man pushed Maggie forward, towards Bucky, and took off like the coward he was. The other two followed close behind. No one stopped to grab the one Bucky had beat up. He stepped over the unconscious man, catching Maggie before she could fall and wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight._

 _She was shaking._

" _Are you alright, Mag?" he asked her, quickly letting go of her with one hand so that he could take off his jacket and put it over her shoulders, in part to protect her decency in part to stop the shaking._

" _I'm fine," she whispered back._

" _You're not," Bucky corrected her. "But you will be."_

 _She wasn't looking at him, she was looking over his shoulder toward Lucy. "I should let you get back to your date," she whispered to him, as if she were the one who had forced him to come to her rescue._

 _Bucky shook his head, "Let me bring you home," he offered._

 _She shook her head. "People will talk, Buck," she told him._

 _He shook his head, "Let them," he growled. "I don't care." And he really didn't._

 _She smiled at him softly, "I know you don't," she told him, lifting one of her hands to his cheek and caressing it softly. "But one day you might." She stepped out of his arms and turned, walking away from him. He called out to her. She turned, smiling sadly at him, "I'll see you tomorrow, Bucky," she assured him._

 _Bucky sighed, he really should walk her the rest of the way home. But he didn't want to push it. And he also had Lucy to deal with. "I better," he warned her, both playful and serious. He would be worried about her until he saw her again. And he'd be damned if he ever let her walk home alone again. That was for sure._

" _You know where to find me," she promised before she disappeared around a dark corner._

* * *

Chapter dictionary:

 _ration - to go steady  
_ _dead hoofer - poor dancer  
_ _blackout girl - attractive girl  
_ _carry a torch - crush on  
_ _charity girl - prostitute  
_ _Take a powder - leave_

* * *

Author's Note:

I know it has been so long! I am so sorry! And I don't even have an excuse besides that I wanted to get this story completely finished before I kept posting it and that hasn't happened yet.  
But I keep coming back to it when I sit down to write other things, so I figure that it is time to update again.  
Thank you so much for all of you that have waited patiently for this update.  
I hope you enjoyed it.  
Thank you to everyone who added this story to your alerts or favorite lists, but the **BIGGEST** thanks to those of you that review. You are the rockstars!

 _Bellaphant:_ Thank you so much for your review! I'm glad that you liked the second chapter. Maggie and Meg are very different as you will see as the story progresses, because Bucky needs them to be different. Because he's different. And I can only hope that I do a good job at capturing the voices of both Bucky Barnes and _him_ (if you notice, in the modern chapters I use the name Bucky very rarely ... there's a reason for that).

 _Sakura:_ I finally updated and then I left you guys hanging for months. I'm sorry about that! But I hope that you are still reading because I think that this is going to be an amazing story too. Thank you so much for your review!

 _LadyWelbury:_ Thank you so much! Reviews that start with the word _Damn_ are always my favorite. I hope that you are still here and that you enjoyed chapter three as well!

 _Sara The Lady Dalian:_ I'm glad that you're enjoying this so far and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as well! Thank you so much for your review. I agree, both women are brave, but at this moment Meg is definitely braver. Or maybe she's just brave in a louder way.  
You caught the names? No one else has mentioned them yet. But yes, there's definitely something there. :)

Thank you guys so much.  
I'll see you back here soon! (Much sooner than last time!)  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


	4. Chapter Four

_Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me!)  
_ _I own nothing besides my two leading ladies, Maggie and Meg, and their story lines. Marvel owns everything else._

* * *

September 9, 2015

He locked himself out of his apartment. "Fuck me," he whispered to himself as he tried the doorknob for probably the tenth time. It didn't make a damn bit of difference. Just as he was considering ramming his metal shoulder into the door and forcing it open he heard her coming up the stairs.

"Yeah Ma," he heard her say as she rounded the corner. He turned, she was too low on the staircase for him to see her face, but he could see the top of her head. "I _know_ ," he heard her continue. A moment and two steps later he could see her face, she was talking on the phone. "I know you worry," she told her mother, shaking her head. She glanced up and caught sight of him, her lips automatically stretching into a smile that he hadn't expected.

He should smile back. That was the normal _human_ reaction. But just as he was about to his gaze dropped to her left wrist. There was a dark purple bruise that wrapped its way completely around her small wrist. The bruise he had left when he had grabbed her too tightly. He turned back to his door, glaring at the dark wood as if it had been the thing that injured the girl.

"You don't need to worry, Ma," she was saying as she finished walking up the steps, pausing on the landing. "I'm not alone." He turned to look at her, his brows furrowed. They'd only spoken once, but she hadn't mentioned anything about living with someone. Her mother seemed to be saying something along the same lines because Meg met his gaze and rolled her eyes playfully. "I'm not, Ma!" she argued. "There's another American in my apartment building. Lives next door to me, actually. He's in the hallway with me right now." She was quiet for a moment, listening. And then she shook her head, though her mother wouldn't be able to see it. "No Mother," she argued, her voice sharper than it had been before. "I'm not going to ask him to do that."

"Do what?" he asked, confused about what some woman in America wanted from him.

She glanced at him and shook her head, "Because it's crazy, Ma. Normal adults don't allow their crazy mothers to talk on the phone with their neighbors. No matter how paranoid the mother is." She was quiet for another moment. "No! It's not okay. I'm not going to do -" she stopped, silently staring at his right hand, the real one, where it was extended toward her, palm up, waiting for her phone.

She raised a brow, "Really?" she asked him.

He shrugged, he didn't have anything else to do, locked out of his apartment and all. And she had helped him on the train. He might as well help her out now, if he could. She smiled and spoke into the phone again, "Okay Ma," she sighed. "Apparently Bucky has more patience for the crazy lady than I do. He says he'll talk to you. Just don't be too weird, try to pretend that you're not insane." And then with a grateful smile she handed him the phone.

He still had trouble understanding cell phones. When he had fallen from the train phones had had cords and were attached to walls. But now everyone seemed to have a small, hand held device, each one more confusing than the last. He had seen the kind that Meg had in stores before. An iphone they called it. He wasn't sure why. This was the first time he had held one though, he stared at it dubiously for a moment before he lifted it to his ear. "Hello?" he practically yelled into the phone, making sure that the woman on the other side of the Atlantic could hear him.

Meg smiled and shook her head, lifting her hand palm facing the floor and lowering it slowly, signaling to him that he didn't have to be so loud. "She's crazy, not deaf," she whispered, teasing him.

" _Hello?_ " the voice came from the other end of the line. " _You're my Meg's neighbor? The American?_ "

"Yes, ma'am," he told her. He didn't know what else to say. A part of him was worried to say too much, as if her mother would sense that there was something different about him, something not right. His mother had always had a special intuition, she told him all mothers had it. He worried that Meg's mother would too.

There was a catch in the woman's breath, a long pause before she spoke again. " _It hasn't been so long since I was called ma'am like that_ ," she told him. " _You were in the military?_ "

He nodded, she wouldn't be able to see that. "Yes, ma'am," he told her again.

This time he was sure that she sobbed before she spoke again. He glanced at Meg, wondering why her mother was so upset. He assumed it had to do with the son she had lost, Meg had called him Billy. On the train Meg had made it seem like she had lost her brother a while ago, but her mother's pain felt fresh, even from a world away. " _Were you in Iraq?_ " she asked him, the words coming out quickly. " _Did you know my Billy? Billy Miller?_ "

He felt his jaw twitch, he didn't want to lie to her. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he told her. "It's a big country, we didn't all know each other."

She laughed, a watery laugh that was more sob than anything else. " _Oh, I know,_ " she told him. " _It was stupid to ask really, I just thought that it was such a coincidence that another American was living next door to Meg. I thought that maybe it was fate. That Billy had somehow sent you to watch over his sister. She hasn't been home since he died, you know. She was in Germany when she got the news. Didn't come home, not even for the funeral. Found a plane to Iraq though, I didn't even know that Americans could go there._ "

Meg was watching him closely, her eyes narrowed. She couldn't hear what her mother was saying, but he had a feeling that she could guess by the amount of time he had stayed silent. She held out her hand, silently asking him for her phone back.

He nodded, "I'll watch out for her while she's here, ma'am," he promised her, not realizing that he intended to keep that promise until it had already slipped from his lips.

" _Thank you_ ," she told him. He started to hand the phone back to Meg when the woman called out again. " _Wait!"_ He pulled the phone back to his ear.

"Yes ma'am?" he asked, letting her know that he was still there.

" _What is Bucky short for?_ " she asked " _It can't be your first name._ "

"Buchanan," he told her. "It's my last name." A bit of a lie, but it was all he felt comfortable giving her.

" _Buchanan_ ," the woman murmured, more to herself as he handed the phone back to Meg.

 _Thank you_ she mouthed to him as she lifted the phone to her ear, "There you go crazy lady!" she told her mother. "You've talked my neighbor into promising to babysit me. Are you happy now?" There was a pause and a sigh, "I love you too, Ma. But I can't. I can't come home yet." She shook her head, "I'm just not ready." She paused and then nodded, "As soon as I'm ready I'll hop on a plane. You have my word." One final pause and then, "I love you, Ma."

She hung up and tucked the phone into her back pocket before she lifted her gaze to meet his. "Thank you," she told him, her voice soft. "You really didn't have to talk to her."

He shrugged his right shoulder, "You should go home to see her," he told her.

She grimaced. "I can't," she whispered. "It's too raw. She won't pack up any of his things. She left his room exactly how he left it, like she expects him to come walking in the door any day now. He's not coming back."

"But you can," he told her. His chest tightened, thinking about his own mother and his three younger siblings. They had lost Bucky, he wondered if they had left his room alone, waiting for him too. He hoped that they hadn't. But from what little he could remember of his mother, she probably did.

Meg watched him for a moment before she sighed, "But not yet," she told him. She looked around the hallway, as if looking for anything she could bring up to change the subject. Her gaze fell on him, "What are you doing out here?" she asked him. "Do you routinely stand out in the hallway waiting to rescue girls from their mothers?"

He smiled a bit at that before he nodded toward the door. "I locked myself out," he told her.

A smile slipped onto her lips, "Sweet," she murmured. "I can help with that, return the phone call favor." He shook his head, he had talked to her mother in an attempt to pay her back for helping him on the train. Now he was going to end up owing her again. But she was already on the move, gesturing for him to follow her toward her door. She glanced over her shoulder as she inserted her key into the lock. "I was hoping to run into you anyway," she told him. "I wanted to give you something, to say thank you for the other day."

"When I nearly knocked you off the staircase?" he asked drily.

Her next glance was sharp, a silent order for him to shut up. "When you _saved_ me from falling off the staircase," she corrected as she opened the door and gestured that he should walk into her apartment. He didn't enter first, Bucky Barnes had always prided himself on being a gentleman, he caught the door and held it open, gesturing for her to walk in first before he followed. She shook her head with a gentle laugh, "Shouldn't have expected anything different," he heard her mutter.

Her apartment was very different from his. He had the bare necessities. Newspapers covering the windows, a mattress on the floor, a table he had pulled from the trash, some chairs he had found on the side of the road. Her apartment had a couch, some area rugs, floor lamps, a television, a comfortable chair by the window, a nice table, a room divider that hid her bedroom from the door, a record player. His gaze fell on the player and the stack of records beside it. He clenched his fists against the itch to play one of them. Meg must have caught his gaze as she headed toward the kitchen. "I'm subletting," she explained to him. "None of this is mine. It belongs to whoever will be moving back when I leave."

She lifted a pan off the counter and moved back toward him. Even from the distance he could smell it. Coffee cake. For a moment he was pulled back to his ma's house in Red Hook. He could hear his sisters giggling and begging their mother to let them have some of the cake before dinner. _Just a bite!_ Rosie would beg. His mother always refused them, but when she wasn't looking Bucky would sneak a forkful to each of the girls. It smelled so damn familiar that his mouth started to water.

She handed the pan to him, "I was never as good at baking as my grandmother," she explained. "She gave me the recipe years ago and this is the first time I tried it. But I think it smells pretty good."

He took the pan from her hand and turned back toward the record player. "I'm sure it's great," he told her. "I've been on kennel rations since I moved in. So anything is a welcome change."

Her brows furrowed, "Kennel rations?" she asked, confused.

He sighed, Bucky had slipped out again without him realizing it. It was happening so much more often now, and usually around this girl. "Meat loaf," he explained to her. "And hash. It's what we called it in the Army."

The line between her eyebrows deepened, "Billy never called it that," she murmured. He was thinking of an excuse when she shook her head. "Though, my mom was never much of a meatloaf or hash maker, so there's that." She smiled, "Let's get you back into your apartment, huh?"

He nodded. She led him past the record player toward the window that led to the fire escape. He paused as she opened the window, "Do you know how to work that?" he asked, gesturing toward the record player.

She shook her head, "No idea," she told him. "Do you?" He nodded. She smiled again, "Old soul," she murmured, that was the second time she had called him that. "Sometime you'll have to come over and we can listen to it."

He nodded, trying not to make too much of a commitment. He wasn't sure how long he would stay in Bucharest. He was getting too close already. It was dangerous. He followed her out onto the fire escape and watched as she crouched in front of his window and pulled a pocket knife out of her back pocket. "I'd say to call the super, but have you seen the stair railing?" she asked him. "It's been like a week and he still hasn't fixed that. You'd be waiting in the hallway for months probably." As she talked she took the knife and inserted it into the little channel that separated the window glass from the frame. She was working on the top half of the wind, the bottom edge, quickly working the knife across the window, loosening it. "Don't worry," she called over her shoulder. "This is much easier than it should be, I'm not the first person to do it."

He raised his eyebrows as he watched her. It took her less than a minute to work her way entirely across the window. Then using the knife she carefully worked the glass out of its frame. "Can you hold this?" she asked, not even looking at him. "I don't want to break the glass."

He moved around her, half crouching, half standing behind her one arm on either side as he slipped his fingers under the glass, pulling it toward him so that there was enough room for her to slip her hand in and turn the window lock. Once her hand was free she gestured for him to put the glass back. He did, moving away from her quickly. It had been a long time since he had been so close to a woman. He could smell her, she smelled like honey. He hadn't ever realized that honey had a smell.

Now all she had to do was make quick work of opening the unlocked window from the outside and within seconds they were crawling through the window into his bare apartment. "And there you go," she announced once they were inside. "Inside in less than five minutes. That's a new record for me."

He smiled slightly, "In like Flynn," he whispered.

She was too busy looking around his empty apartment to notice his 1940s slip. "God," she whispered. "And I thought you were joking about the hash."

He shook his head. "It was empty when I moved in," he told her.

She nodded, "Yeah, and did you furnish it by dumpster diving?"

Her statement hit close enough to home that he didn't know how to answer it. He simply nodded. She looked at him, her brown eyes soft. "You're coming to my apartment for dinner," she told him as she moved back toward his window, preparing to crawl back out and head back to her apartment. He wanted to argue with her, but when she turned to look at him her face held a fierceness that he wasn't going to fight against. "You are," she told him. "Use the door, take a key this time. I only do one free break in, a neighbor, next time it'll cost you."

After she had crawled out of the window she turned back, sticking her head back inside, "Eighteen hundred," she told him. "The door will be unlocked, just let yourself in."

-.-.-.-.-

True to her word, when he tried the doorknob at six o'clock that evening it was unlocked. She was in the kitchen, cutting into a steak to see if it was cooked to her standards. She turned toward him and smiled before she nodded. "And here I thought I was going to have to drag you out of your apartment by your ear," she told him.

The dinner was delicious. And Meg was pretty good company. He didn't talk much, afraid that he would say something that would give him away. Or that he would say something that people just didn't talk about anymore. But he listened. He didn't mind listening, he liked her voice. It was silvery, that was the only word he could think of to describe it - clear and light and pleasant. At times it rose and fell as if she were speaking a song.

It had been her voice more than her questions that had quieted the Soldier on the train the first day he met her. And it was her voice now that made him relax when she told him stories of what she had seen so far in Bucharest. He laughed at one point when she told him about running from the cops after breaking into a church. "It wasn't my fault, really," she assured him. "The locals told me that it offered the best view of the city at night."

"Are you going to put that in your guidebook?" he teased, almost feeling like himself. Almost feeling like Bucky.

"Of course," she told him with a nod. "That and instructions on how to break into your hot neighbor's apartment when he locks himself out."

-.-.-.-.-

The next morning when he woke up and went to the fridge he found a stack of tupperware containers with left overs from dinner the night before in there. They hadn't been there when he went to bed.

He turned toward the window and found a note taped to the glass.

 _You should really lock your windows_ she warned in a flowing cursive. _Some weirdo might break into your kitchen and try to feed you_.

* * *

Author's Note:  
Hello again! Welcome back to modern times where our poor Bucky is trying to rediscover himself! (With Meg's help of course!)  
It seems that most of my readers prefer Meg to Maggie - I will be honest, I love them both, but Meg has a slightly larger place in my heart.  
She's just so fierce and strong.  
But so is Maggie in her own quiet way.  
Thank you so much for stopping by to read this chapter. I hope that you enjoyed it!  
If you did, please take a few moments to review! Makes me feel goo about myself.  
Thank you to those of you that have added this story to their alerts and favorites list, it is very kind of you.  
But kinder still are my reviewers ...

 _Sakura_ : Thank you so much for your (two!) reviews on the last chapter. I am glad that you are enjoying this story so far and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as well! Let me know!

That's all I've got for now.  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


	5. Chapter Five

Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me!)  
I own nothing besides my two leading ladies, Maggie and Meg, and their story lines. Marvel owns everything else.

* * *

 _January 1, 1941_

 _The next time they were all together was New Years. Maggie hadn't been lying when she told Bucky that he would see her the day after he saved her from being attacked, but she hadn't made it easy for him to talk to her. Whenever he went to the dance hall she was always busy, too busy to sit and talk to him and Steve, too busy to dance with him, too busy to smile it seemed._

 _He heard from Steve that his scrawny friend had somehow managed to run into her on the main drag. Before she could make some excuse Steve had dragged her into the diner and forced her to have lunch with him. Bucky's jaw had clenched when he heard that she had talked to Steve, explained to him what had happened that night in mid December. She told him that while she was grateful to Bucky for saving her she was worried about what people would say if they continued to spend time together._

 _Steve had glanced at him apologetically, "I told her that Bucky Barnes doesn't give a damn about what people thought," he assured Bucky. "I told her that if you did you wouldn't have stayed friends with me for so long. But she wouldn't hear it, Buck. You know how self-righteous people get when they think they're doing the right thing."_

" _Yeah," Bucky had deadpanned, staring pointedly at his friend as he thought of all the times he had saved Steve's ass when the kid got himself into a fight with someone twice his size. "I think I've got an idea."_

 _He was jealous of Steve Rogers. And he hated himself for it. Jealous of the hour Steve had gotten to spend with Maggie when she could barely look at him. He was grateful to him too, grateful that Steve had forced her to spend time with him, to check on her, grateful that he had thought to tell Bucky how she was doing. Jealous and grateful were a strange mix of emotions. He didn't like it._

 _On New Year's Eve he took a girl to the dance hall, Dotty Prescott. He danced with her the entire night, even to the slow songs. And if he pulled her closer to him whenever Maggie danced by him he pretended not to notice. At midnight he kissed her. He turned away from her, smiling to himself, proud that he had showed Maggie Smith that she didn't matter to him. But what he saw when he looked toward her made his chest tighten. She was standing next to Steve, his friend had his arm wrapped around her shoulders as if he were comforting her. She doesn't make eye contact with him._

 _The next morning Steve showed up at his apartment, his face stern and serious. "You shouldn't have done that," he told his friend by way of greeting when Bucky let him into his apartment. Bucky knew what Steve was talking about, but he can't bring himself to admit it. He raised an eyebrow. Steve sighed, "You shouldn't have paraded Dotty around like that. It wasn't fair to either of them."_

" _Fair?" Bucky questioned, not sure what fair had to do with anything. Dotty was a real toujour la clinch. She wasn't the type who fell in love. She had wanted a fun date on New Year's Eve and Bucky had given it to her. And how was kissing his date unfair to Maggie? She had had plenty of chances to approach him. She hadn't taken a single one._

" _You used Dotty to make Maggie jealous," Steve pointed out, his voice hard. "And what's worse is that you succeeded."_

 _That floored Bucky, he hadn't expected that. "Maggie was jealous?" he asked, surprise coloring his tone._

 _Steve nodded. "She found me a minute before midnight with three glasses of champagne. She wanted to ring in the new year with her only two friends in Red Hook she said. We looked for you, and boy did we find you, necking with Dotty on the dance floor." He shook his head, "She wouldn't say anything, didn't want to trash talk you in front of me, I think, but she was hurt."_

" _What am I supposed to do about that?" Bucky asked._

" _Make it right," Steve told him. "Make it right, Buck."_

" _How?" Bucky asked. He didn't understand how Steve expected him to make anything right when Maggie wouldn't let him get anywhere near her._

 _Steve grinned at his friend and shook his head, "You're lucky that I'm your best friend," he assured Bucky. "And you're lucky that I'm not good enough looking to be her warm shoulder when she's upset with you." Bucky wondered when Steve had decided that he and Maggie were an item. Sure, he liked the girl, but they weren't together. "We're meeting her at the diner in half an hour," Steve told him. "She doesn't know you're coming."_

 _Bucky wanted to rush to his bedroom and change. Suddenly the clothes he was wearing weren't good enough. But he paused, "Why?" he asked._

" _Because if I told her that you were coming she might have said no," Steve told him, raising an eyebrow._

" _No," Bucky replied, shaking his head. "Why are you so intent on fixing this? If she's so convinced that she's bad news for me and that I should care what people think about me then why are you trying so hard to fix it?"_

 _Steve shrugged, as if it were the most simple answer in the world, and perhaps for him it was. Steve didn't just react to the world around him, he truly saw it. "Because you're clobbered," he told him. "You have been since the day you dragged her over to me and tried to not pay her to dance with me."_

" _I'm not -" Bucky tried to argue._

 _But Steve was having none of it. "You are," he interrupted. "And if you would get your head out of your ass long enough to tell if the sun was shining you would see it too."_

 _It wasn't worth arguing, they didn't have time. If they were going to meet her at the diner in a half hour that meant he only had five minutes to change before they needed to be walking out the door. He'd leave arguing over whether or not he liked Maggie Smith to another time. He sighed, "I'll go change my duds," he told Steve._

 _Steve nodded, "And brush your hair," he ordered as Bucky walked down the short hallway toward his bedroom. "It's a damn mess."_

" _You sound like my mother!" Bucky threw out over his shoulder._

" _And you sound like a meatball who's about to miss his chance on a great girl."_

 _-.-.-.-.-_

 _She was waiting for them in the cafe when they arrived. Or rather, she was waiting on Steve, she didn't know that Bucky was crashing their breakfast. She smiled when the door to the diner opened, the bell ringing gently, and she saw Steve looking for her. Bucky tried not to let it bother him that the smile slipped off her lips a moment later when her gaze landed on him._

 _She was less open when they reached the table than she would have been if it were just Steve. Bucky began to regret coming. Perhaps she would have been happier to see him if they hadn't sprung it on her like this._

 _Steve, bless him, quickly slid into the booth across the table from her, taking up as much room as his scrawny body could and leaving Bucky to squeeze in beside Maggie. He didn't want to touch her, knew bone-deep that she didn't want him to. But in order to sit comfortably he had to rest his arm across the booth back behind her. She hugged in on herself, trying to make herself as small as possible, trying to give him as much room as she possibly could._

" _Perhaps I should sit next to Steve," she offered, pointing across the table. "There'd be more -"_

 _Bucky cut her off by reaching his left hand forward and tucking a strand of her red hair behind her ear. No matter how carefully she curled her hair, no matter how much time she spent on it, it was unruly, and sometimes it refused to stay put. Then with her silent and still under his hand he leaned closer, pressing a kiss against her cheek. "Happy New Year, doll," he told her once he had pulled away._

 _It was nothing special, the kiss. Especially compared to what he had gotten the night before from Dotty Prescott. But it felt different. It felt like something special. It felt like something real._

 _She was still for a moment, a pink blush glowing prettily on her cheek before she turned to look at him. He expected a smile, perhaps even a kiss on his cheek in return. What he did not expect was for her to pull back her hand and slap him across the face. "How dare you, James Buchanan Barnes?" she fired at him, gaining the attention of almost every other person at the diner. "How dare you?"_

 _Bucky glanced at Steve, hoping for some help from his best friend. But Steve was laughing at him. He turned back to Maggie, lifting his hand to his cheek, he had received harder hits at the boxing gym, but there was something about a slap that stung more. He thought that it was the humiliation, maybe. There was so much that he could have said to her in that moment. But the only thing that came out was, "How do you know my name?"_

" _Steven told me," Maggie answered, shooting a quiet glare at Steve now. The blonde stopped laughing. She turned back to Bucky, "Now answer my question. How dare you?"_

" _How dare I, what?" Bucky asked, still rubbing at his cheek. He hoped that he wouldn't have a red hand print on his cheek for the rest of the day, but something told him that he might. She had a good slap._

" _You spend all night parading Dotty Prescott in front of me! Making out with her at midnight and then turning to look for me, as if to make sure that I had a front row seat to your little show! And then you show up to breakfast today, uninvited mind you, and you greet me with a 'happy new year, doll.' You have some nerve, James Buchanan."_

 _Bucky chuckled, "I'm not uninvited," he told her. He nodded toward Steve, "Steven invited me."_

 _Steve glared at him, "Thanks pal," he murmured from across the table as Maggie turned to glare at him again. "I needed that."_

" _And we're going to have to have a conversation about you using my full name," Bucky told her. "Not even my mother uses my full name unless I'm in trouble."_

 _Maggie crossed her arms over her chest, she wouldn't look at him. "I bet you'd be in trouble if we told your mother what you did," she muttered, more to herself than to him._

 _Bucky chuckled, he enjoyed this side of Maggie. The side that was fiery as her hair. "What are you most angry at, Mag?" he asked her, he was truly curious. "Is it that I kissed Dotty at midnight? Or that I looked for you afterward?"_

" _You can kiss whoever the hell you want," Maggie told him, her voice harsher than he imagined she meant it to be. "I don't care."_

" _Then what do you care about?" Bucky asked. It seemed important, to know and understand whatever it was that upset her so much._

" _It bothers me that you thought it would bother me," Maggie explained, her voice so serious that Bucky almost felt bad for laughing at her. "Stop laughing, James Buchanan."_

 _He couldn't, especially when she lifted her hand to hit him again. He was faster than her, his left hand shot out, catching her wrist, "Don't hit me again, Margaret Smith," he warned her. "I've never hit a woman and I don't want to start now. But I won't let you hit me again."_

 _She glared at him and wrenched her hand out of his grasp. "Fine," she muttered. "But I expect an apology."_

 _Bucky laughed. He sure as hell wasn't going to apologize to her. "How about a deal instead?" he asked, his eyebrows raised._

" _What sort of deal?" she countered._

" _Smart girl," he praised her for wanting to know the terms before she agreed to anything. "How about I stop trying to bother you if you agree to stop calling me James Buchanan. It's Bucky or Barnes."_

 _She was quiet, thinking over his terms for a moment before she nodded. "That seems agreeable," she told him._

 _He smiled and held out his hand to her so that they could shake on it. "Friends?" he asked her._

 _She smirked at him as she slipped her hand into his grasp. "I don't think we ever were to start with," she told him. "But we're friends now."_

" _This is awkward," Steve murmured from his seat across the table. He had pulled two rolled up pieces of sketch paper out of his jacket. "Not that you're being nice to each other again," he told them hurriedly. "I'm real happy about that. But that you're only friends."_

 _Both Bucky and Maggie turned to look at Steve with raised eyebrows, not quite understanding what was so awkward about their renewed friendship. Steve leaned across the table and handed them each a one of the paper rolls. "This is your Christmas present," he explained. "It's the same picture."_

 _Bucky unrolled his paper faster than Maggie unrolled hers. She leaned closer to him, her chin on his shoulder as they both stared down at the colored sketch. Steve had drawn them each a sketch of the first and only time they had danced together. He must have started it that night because the Maggie in the drawing was wearing the same cobalt blue dress that she had worn that night. Bucky's hand was splayed across the small of her back, almost as big as her waist itself. Their hands were curled in, resting against Bucky's chest and they were looking at each other as if they were the only two people in the world._

 _Scrawled across the bottom in Steve's neat cursive were the words: As Time Goes By and the date they had danced: December 12, 1940._

 _Maggie was the first to speak, "It's beautiful, Steve," she whispered. "Really and truly beautiful."_

 _Bucky nodded, he couldn't look away from the picture though. He finally saw it, whatever it was that Steve had seen that made him think that Bucky was stuck on Maggie._

 _He was._

 _-.-.-.-.-_

 _He showed up at the dance hall early one evening about a week after their new years breakfast at the diner, before the bouncer even got there. The waitresses were sitting at the bar, trading make up and stories about how they had spent their days. The band was just setting up. And Maggie was sitting in a booth toward the back, a mirror propped up in front of her as she re-pinned her victory rolls in place._

 _Bucky could feel several of the waitresses' eyes on him as he strode across the floor toward Maggie's table, but he didn't bother making eye contact with any of them. He didn't care what they thought. And he certainly wasn't there for them. He was there for the red head in a purple dress._

 _When he was within a foot or so from her table she glanced up at him, her green eyes widening in surprise. "What are you doing here, Barnes?" she asked him. Her face looked friendly enough, but her tone was colored with suspicion. They were friends now, but she still seemed to want to keep him at a distance._

" _Hello to you too, doll," he told her with his most friendly smile as he sat down in the seat across from her. "I wanted to ask you a question."_

" _Yeah?" she asked, paying less attention to him now as her gaze fell back to the mirror on the table. Apparently one of the pins in her hair wasn't just right because she took it out to put it back in the exact same place. Bucky couldn't see a difference. "And what question is that?"_

" _You have the night off two days from now, right?" he asked her, his smile widening. He was sure that she would know where he was going with this._

 _She nodded, "I do," she told him. "I'm not Fred Astaire, I gotta rest my feet sometimes."_

 _He chuckled, "More Ginger Rogers than Fred Astaire I would think," he told her. She shrugged, finally looking up from the mirror and raising an eyebrow, still waiting for him to get to his point. "Well, I was wondering if you'd want to come out dancing with me?" he asked, sure that he knew the answer._

" _I'm here every night, Buck," she told him, her voice soft. "What makes you think I'd want to come here on my night off?"_

 _Bucky shrugged, he hadn't been expecting that. "Well, we don't have to come here," he told her. "We can go wherever you want. You want to go to the picture house? We'll go there."_

 _She shook her head and sighed. There was a look in her eyes that Bucky didn't know what to do with. She looked sorry for him. "I," she started before she shook her head again. "I think you're swell, Buck," she told him, her voice gentle. "But, I'm not going to be one of your girls. If you want to date me then you can only date me. We go steady or not at all."_

 _No girl had ever given Bucky that ultimatum before. He didn't know what to do. He shook his head, "Mag," he started. "I don't, I don't go steady."_

 _She nodded, her lips pursing for a moment, "I know," she told him. He couldn't tell if she was saddened by that fact or not. She was quiet for a moment before she stood from her seat, slamming the palms of her hands against the top of the table. "So we're friends," she told him. "And nothing else. And I'd love to go to the picture house with you as your friend."_

 _Bucky chuckled, "Just so you know, I don't pay for movie tickets for my friends," he warned her._

 _She laughed and shook her head, "I wouldn't have let you even if you did."_

* * *

Author's Note:

And so it continues. Bucky's getting closer to both our girls.  
I hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter! If you did take a moment and review down below! Reviews are like air for me! (Or write's block deterrent!)  
Special thanks to **Sakura1607 and S. Arke** for your reviews on the last chapter. You two are wonderful! I am so glad that you guys are enjoying these two versions of Bucky and that I am somehow able to keep them as close to the original Bucky as possible.  
That was part of the fun challenge with this story for me ... writing about two different men, who actually happen to be the same man.  
It's good to know I'm doing pretty well.  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


End file.
